Cervical carcinoma is considered to be the third most common cancer in women in the world. Infection by certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV), in particular HPV 16 and HPV 18, increases the risk for cervical cancer. Although HPV infection is common among young women, only less than 1% of those testing positive for oncogenic HPV types at screening develop cervical cancer. There is an increased risk of developing cervical carcinoma in situ (CIS) with increasing amounts of the HPV 16 DNA in cervical smear samples (Josefsson et al. 2000; Ylitalo et al. 2000). HPV load has been studied using different designs, disease outcomes and techniques for viral load determination. van Duin et al. (2002), using a nested case-control design, show that women with high HPV 16 DNA titer in smears normal by cytology have an increased risk of later developing cervical interstitial neoplasia of grade 2 and 3 (CIN2/CIN3). Also, using a case-control study Sun et al. (2002) showed an increased risk of squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL) with higher amounts of HPV. By contrast, Lorincz et al. (2002) did not find an increased risk of CIN3 or cervical cancer with higher viral titers.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,420,106 describes a method to predict the risk of progression to virus associated cancer in a human subject. This method utilizes virus titer as a basis for the analysis.